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Petraeus scandal ensnares second general

By Elisabeth Bumiller and Eric SchmittThe New York Times

Posted:
11/14/2012 12:01:00 AM MST

Updated:
11/14/2012 06:30:29 AM MST

WASHINGTON — Conflicting portrayals of e-mails written by Gen. John Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, emerged Tuesday after it was disclosed that the general was under investigation for what the Pentagon called "inappropriate communication" with the woman whose complaint to the FBI set off the scandal involving former CIA director David Petraeus' extramarital affair.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other officials traveling with him to Australia overnight Monday disclosed the inquiry into Allen's e-mails with Jill Kelley, the woman in Tampa, Fla., who was seen by Paula Broadwell, Petraeus' lover, as a rival for his attentions.

Panetta, along with Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, referred the Allen matter to the Pentagon's inspector general, according to Panetta's aides, after a team of military and civilian lawyers reviewed what defense officials say are an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 pages of documents, including hundreds of e-mails between Allen and Kelley, that the FBI forwarded to the Pentagon.

Associates of Allen said Tuesday that the e-mails were innocuous. Some of them used terms of endearment but not in a flirtatious way, the associates said.

"If you know Allen, he's just the kind of guy to respond dutifully to every e-mail he gets — 'you're the best,' 'you're a sweetheart,' that kind of thing," according to a senior U.S. official who is familiar with the investigation.

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Even so, other Pentagon officials briefed on the content of the e-mails said that some of the language did, on initial reading, seem "overly flirtatious" and warranted further inquiry. The Pentagon's top lawyer, Jeh Johnson, recommended sending the matter to the inspector general, senior defense officials said. An inappropriate communication could violate military rules.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported that the FBI is making a new push to determine how Broadwell obtained classified files.

Senior law enforcement officials said that a late-night seizure on Monday of boxes of material from Broadwell's North Carolina home marks a renewed focus by investigators on sensitive material found in her possession.

"The issue of national security is still on the table," one U.S. law enforcement official said.

Both Petraeus and Broadwell have denied to investigators that he was the source of any classified information, officials said.

The surprise move by the FBI follows previous assertions by U.S. officials that the investigation had turned up no evidence of a security breach — a factor that was cited as a reason the Justice Department did not notify the White House before last week that the CIA director had been ensnared in an e-mail inquiry.

Senior officials in the Obama administration and lawmakers from both parties expressed shock at what could be a widening scandal into two of the most prominent generals of their generation: Petraeus, who was the top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan before he retired from the military to become director of the CIA, only to resign Friday because of his affair, and Allen, a Marine who also served in Iraq and now commands U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

"My immediate gut is like this is the National Enquirer," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, told CNN. "I mean, every day there is something new."

Feinstein added that she has "many questions about the nature of the FBI investigation, how it was instituted, and we'll be asking those."

President Barack Obama, however, voiced support for Allen through his spokesman Tuesday.

"The president thinks very highly of Gen. Allen," press secretary Jay Carney said at a White House news briefing. "He has faith in Gen. Allen."

But the matter has created enough concern that Allen's recent nomination to become NATO's top military officer was delayed at Panetta's request, pending the investigation's outcome.

Allen's connection to the scandal appears to have originated with an e-mail he received from an account that was registered under a fake name and has now been linked to Broadwell, according to a senior U.S. official. The e-mail warned Allen to be wary of Kelley and was vaguely threatening. Though he did not know who had written the e-mail, he was concerned and passed it on to Kelley. She then discussed it with an agent she knew at the FBI's field office in Tampa, whose cyber crime unit opened an investigation that eventually linked Broadwell to Petraeus.

A senior law enforcement official in Washington said Tuesday that FBI investigators, looking into Kelley's complaint about anonymous e-mails she had received, examined all of her emails as a routine step. Officials familiar with the investigation said it covers 20,000 to 30,000 page of documents, but Pentagon officials cautioned against making too much of that number, since some might be from email chains, or brief messages printed out on a whole page.

A defense official said that the e-mails between Kelley and Allen spanned the years 2010 to 2012.

U.S. officials familiar with the social dynamics at the upper echelons of the Central Command described Kelley as wealthy socialite who knew "almost every" high-ranking officer serving in Tampa.

A senior official said Kelley was close to both Allen and his wife. She would often send e-mails, hundreds over the course of any given year, to the couple about parties or people she had met or trips she was considering. Allen was never alone with Kelley, the official said, and while he may have been "affectionate in a few e-mails with her, there's nothing he's embarrassed about or embarrassed to tell his wife about."

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